


dear steve montgomery

by aisu10



Category: Chronicle (2012)
Genre: Bring tissues, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Letters, M/M, POV First Person, sadfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 23:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12095337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu10/pseuds/aisu10
Summary: a letter from andrew to steve, too late.





	dear steve montgomery

**Author's Note:**

> i actually found this in my phone, nearly complete, written last december. i guess now is as good a time as ever to share it with the world.
> 
> this is from andrew's pov, of course.

it took six hours for your death to sink in. when i caught you, i thought you were alive. maybe it was just the lingering static of the lightning bolt i never meant to hit you with, but i could have sworn i felt the thrum of your pulse when i wrapped my arms around your chest and carried you to the ground. i thought you were going to be alright. i thought you would smile as apologies tumbled out of my mouth, reassure me like you always did when i fucked up. the flash of the lightning brought me to my senses, you see. in that split-second of total clarity, all i could see was you, there with me, even at my very worst. my dad told me you didn't care, and i believed him, because if even my own dad didn't care about me then how could anyone else? but if you didn't care, i wouldn't have seen you floating there, suspended in time and space high above the clouds, illuminated by the flash of light that took your life. when i caught you, i thought i had realized this just in time; when we hit the ground and i saw that the lightning had stolen the spark from your wide-open eyes, i learned that i had realized it too late.   
  
those six hours of shock were spent lying in bed wide awake after i left you in that field. i didn't take my raincoat off. i just got into bed and let the rainwater that soaked me from head to toe seep into my mattress and rust the springs. i didn't know how to process what happened. i kept thinking that it had to have been a nightmare or some twisted hallucination. i kept looking at my phone, expecting it to light up with a message from you, a simple "r u ok?" or even just a "hey." but i couldn't forever ignore the empty static crackling in my head in the place you once resided, and when the storm outside finally subsided six hours past the moment of your death and ceased to fill the silence, a storm of my own began.   
  
i couldn't stop crying. my tears fell harder than the rain that had pelted us up in the sky, than the rain that had threatened to drown us both as i sat in the mud afterward and held your body in cold, dull shock. each breath i took was a hurricane wind, battering my lungs and tearing past my lips. the thundering of my heart was the only thing i could hear besides my own terrible sobs. only when there were more tears than rainwater soaked into my bedspread was i able to stop, and in that moment i realized i couldn't go on like this. i would rather follow you into the ground than have to live every day dealing with this crushing guilt and sorrow.    
  
so instead, i shut down.    
  
after six hours of shock and three of crying, i tore all the tenderness out of my chest and embraced the dull emptiness that is life without you. but it wasn't as easy as i thought it would be. i thought that in that first night i had cried all the tears i could cry, but even if i had cried out every ounce of moisture in my body it would not have been enough. when matt found me at your funeral, his blame made me feel so guilty that i had to come to your grave and apologize in a desperate attempt to make sure you didn't hate me as much as him. i thought that maybe after speaking to your grave, the tears would stop for good, but as soon as i got home they started up again, bubbling up from somewhere deep inside me to fall from my eyes onto everything i touched. as i stumbled into my room they fell in droplets on my notebook and curled the edges of the pages, and that's when i decided to write you this letter. i thought that maybe if i write down everything i'm feeling, i wouldn't have to feel it anymore. or at least i'd feel it a little less.   
  
so, steve, these are all the things i never got to tell you. there was so much more to you than they knew. you loved life in a way i never learned how to, in a way i surely never will now. you weren't able to fill all the holes inside me like you wanted to, but you made them feel smaller just by caring enough to try. you were the only thing holding back the darkness growing inside me, the darkness i fear i won't stand a chance against now that you're gone. you were stronger than me. you looked at me like you could actually see me. you listened to me like you could actually hear me. i want you to know how special you made me feel. but most of all, i want you to know i'm sorry. i'm sorry it was you and not me like it should have been. i'm sorry for everything i did and everything i'm going to do. i'm sorry for every breath i take because each one was stolen from you. i don't need to tell you i love you, because you already knew. you were my best friend, and i'll never forgive myself for doubting you.   
  
i know there's no point in telling you all this now. you'll be as blind to these words as you were deaf to the ones i said when i visited your grave and apologized. after i finish this letter, i'll go back to your grave and burn it with a lighter matt forgot he asked me to hold. i'll spread its ashes over the wilting flowers and turn them gray. they'll be much more fitting, that way. i don't know if anyone else noticed, but you took all the colors with you when you left. you were made of colors i didn't know existed. colors i had only ever seen echoes of in the reflections in my mom's eyes when she looked at me. i'll never be as bright as you, as bright as she thinks i am. you must have thought i was that bright, too. just like her, you looked at me as if you could see more than just shades of gray in my silhouette. and that was your fatal flaw.   
  
if you were here, you'd be warm and tangible and whole in ways my empty shell will never be. you'd be smiling, radiantly, just the way i remember. you'd fit in my arms as if we were meant to be together, as if i were meant for more than pain. you still wouldn't fill all the holes inside me, but at least i would no longer have one shaped like you where my heart used to be.   
  
i'm going to stop writing now, steve. i've said all i need to say, and now i need to let go. i just can't dwell on this pain anymore. i have to bury it along with you. i have to go numb if i'm going to survive. i know you wouldn't like to hear that, and i'm sorry. i'm so, so sorry. i just don't know how else i can face the world i took you from.


End file.
